1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for performing power management functions.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a system which includes power management hardware, the validation of such a system would typically require that all components of this system, both hardware and software, be functional. Whilst the power management hardware and the power management software can be developed in parallel, it is often the case that the power management software is ready to be tested before the hardware design is complete. There is hence typically a delay in testing the software resulting from awaiting completion of the hardware design.
Up to now, system level power management functions have been constructed using implementation-specific hardware. For example, memory-mapped hardware registers can be programmed to shut off clocks to subsystems.
However, there is generally a desire to design system hardware such that it can be re-used in different implementations, and with specific regard to power management hardware, this has led to the design of some generic power management hardware which is not implementation specific, with that generic power management hardware having a standard interface for interfacing to implementation specific power management hardware. An example of the implementation specific power management hardware would be the voltage regulators used to control the power rails of the system.
In designs that incorporate such generic power management hardware, it would be desirable to be able to perform some testing of the power management software without waiting for the design of the implementation-specific power management hardware to be complete.